Sunday, 18 December 2016

Vicky, his elder
sister laments. She explains that she had over-heard Lucy`s mother telling
auntie Chipo that she had over-heard her husband talking to Ziyepi the kraal
head that the bread deliveryvan was
stuck in the mud across Nyamachesi River.

Even if they pulled it out, the river
is in flood. It is Christmas Eve.

Friday, 19 August 2016

Each Autumn, the local farmers would look for ‘potato gatherers’ to gather the ‘praties’ as we called them. Imagine a cold Autumn dawn, the sharp frost broken by the early sun and the tractor as it ‘ raped ’ the field.

The most empowering sensation, was not the toil and the tedium of back-breaking work, but the clutch of the 10s 0d shilling note you were paid as you raced home with the ‘Queens’ ten-shillings.

Friday, 1 July 2016

Tuesday, 14 June 2016

" Hi Mervyn - I was actually listening to you reading your poems yesterday and I really enjoyed them. I have to say my favourite is the one about the Sunday afternoon sleeping uncles and also the one about going to the moss on the back of the tractor (sheep, crow etc).

I guess any time I want to wander down memory lane I can just listen to them all so keep writing. I can't really put into words how much I enjoy them but you know I was there so can really "see" a lot of it as I read them - pictures in the mind never go away. I suppose they are always there and then you read something like one of the poems and it all just comes back cos it was never gone -just lying below the surface somewhere.

I'm so glad one of us was able to put into words how much we loved being on the farm when Mum was ill and we were "farmed out" as it were - only it was such an enjoyable part of our lives and one I still miss - not being able to go there any more - guess it's a part of growing up and moving on, maybe I didn't really want to grow up If I had known that some things wouldn't stay the same for ever but they can't. "

Friday, 20 May 2016

O Derry Boy - People write poetry for as many reasons as there are poets in the world.
Some write to exorcise demons, some to express a viewpoint.
Some do it to charm their readers, while others set out to shock.
Mervyn follows none of these paths, but his passions are equally as valid.

O Derry Boy sets out to capture a lost moment in history; a hitherto forgotten time
and place that most of us will never have experienced; a harsher time, yet a time
afforded a seductive allure by his evocatively wistful reminiscences.

Is this Mervyn's childhood in 20 th century rural Northern Ireland or is this a magical dreamworld that only those with true poetry in their souls will ever visit?

You'll have to buy the book to decide, but before you do, spend an evening in his company and let him tell you his story in the accent that matches the pictures.

Saturday, 7 May 2016

They closed the line and shut the stationBuilt a better road too, straight and trueAnd left the bridge a gaping mawStaring across its former fields,Yellow riot of prickly gorseIvy strained sadness of Ulster stone